Another Cross-Country Adventure: Day 4

Iowa was colder than I thought it would be this time of year. My hands and feet were frozen as soon as I stepped outside of the hotel. I had to sit in the cab of the moving truck with the heat on full blast to warm up.

Then again, I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, having never been to Iowa in the winter.

I’d never been to any of the states we drove through, or were going to drive through, in winter, except for New York, so it was all new to me. What I thought I knew about these states and their weather was, in some cases, a huge surprise.

Anyway…

It was another early morning.

Another sunrise.

This one set the sky on fire.

As the sun began to appear over the horizon, its colors bursting into the sky, it set the morning ablaze with a bright red sky. Slowly it faded into a lighter red, turned pink, and then faded into a bright violet. It was gorgeous.

Our drive through Iowa didn’t last long. The states came fast now – Illinois, Indiana, Ohio.

We drove through miles and miles of farmland, of wind farms housing clusters of wind turbines, of endless sightings of water towers. I started taking pictures of every water tower we saw and sending them to my brother (which is an inside joke between us from when we were kids)…until I felt like I was seeing one every couple of miles and therefore accidently clogging his phone with pictures of water towers.

I turned my attention to the wind turbines and the farmland. The turbines never ceased to amaze me in size, looking smaller farther away, but once you’re practically on top of them it’s easy to see how big and tall they truly are. Some of the turbines seemed to be on people’s property and I’m not sure if they owned the wind farm or if they simply were leasing the land…or sold it completely. Other parts of the land were flat, made for farming or grazing, and housed a living space and barn. In some cases there were also a couple of silos. Some of the houses were small, others were big. Some of the houses looked as if they had been there forever, possibly generational farms kept in the family.

As we drove, I kept thinking how there was something beautiful about all we were seeing.

If you missed Another Cross-Country Adventure: Prelude to Day 1, please click here to read.

If you missed Another Cross-Country Adventure: Day 1, please click here to read.

If you missed Another Cross-Country Adventure: Day 2, please click here to read.

If you missed Another Cross-Country Adventure: Day 3, please click here to read.

To see more photos, please visit my gallery by clicking here.